Mouse on Mars is one of the few electronic bands to stand the test of time. Constantly reinventing themselves, they have taken electronica to new heights with a unique blend of sound annihilation, fragmented melodies and an impassioned hatred of conformity. For nearly two deacades, Andi Toma and Jan St. Werner have sweated over burning consoles to create a new musical language, only to twist it again into thousands of myriad distortions. Mouse On Mars' sound links them to the club-music scene, as do their many remixes and collaborations with members of the dance-music world. Yet their association with the formalized and utilitarian world of dance music is ironic, as the band’s raison d’etre is to place electronic flies in any aural ointment they choose to muck through.
OFFICIAL :: FACEBOOK :: TWITTER :: WIKI :: SOUNDCLOUD
A series of 10 albums and numerous remixes has come off as primarily intent on dashing expectations, from the ambient-house ectoplasms of 1994’s Vulvaland and 1995’s slightly more structured Iaora Tahiti; to the flighty and funny electronics, spluttering horns and acoustic-guitar samples of 2000’s more “organic” Niun Niggung; to the forest of sonic porcupine quills that is Idiology. Radical Connector (2004) further granulated the MoM aesthetic into nine vaguely pop-oriented songs, ever heavier on the beats and increasingly hinging the tunes on the vocals and drumming of longtime collaborator Dodo Nkishi. Varcharz (2006) entirely recorded at Mouse on Mars’ St. Martin Ton Studios in Duesseldorf has been their most live sounding and diverse studio album to date. 2012 will see a new Mouse on Mars once again. Their latest LP Parastrophics is a thriving vision of the other side of experimental music. Discordance turns into pop as Alice in Wonderland bounces her booty to laser bass sounds, the likes of which would make Walt Disney jealously ponder the question, “Why didn’t I think of that?!” Parastrophics is glamorous, funky and deep. No speakers exist that could display all the details of such manic production.
The period leading up to the release of Parastrophics was one of uncharacteristic silence for Mouse On Mars. Their 10th studio album was 5 years in the making - and the record, for all its deftness and dizzying unpredictability, was notable for the resulting sense of gravitas. WOW is the exact opposite, a spontaneous reaction to all those hours of studio labour, created from scratch in a matter of weeks, and released just 6 months after its predecessor. You can almost feel the tension being released. WOW is an exuberant, immediate and club-orientated counterpoint to Parastrophics, with Jan Werner and Andi Thoma aiming their considerable technical finesse firmly in the direction of the dancefloor. The vocal presence tying the whole mini-album together is Dao Anh Khanh, whom the band met during their tour of Asia 2011. Dao is a performer and sculptor from Vietnam, who invented a fantasy language which the band recorded together with him in an arcane Hanoi studio. Further contributions come from the Argentinian girl punk band Las Kellies and Eric D. Clarke. Thrown together, these disparate elements come together to make a whole which is epic, abstract, intense and ridiculous at the same time. WOW is Mouse on Mars gone theatrical.
